


It Helps

by ChaosMorning



Series: DaiKen Week 2017 [5]
Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, DaiKen Week 2017, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 08:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11158107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaosMorning/pseuds/ChaosMorning
Summary: There are several constants in Ken's dreams: the sea, the sand, and the solitude.These are the ways that Ken copes with memories of a black ocean and a colourless world, and of a time spent with spores in his skin.





	It Helps

**Author's Note:**

> Day Five: Angst/Hurt/Comfort

There are three constants in Ken’s dreams.

_The first is the sea._  
  
When Ken dreams he finds himself drowning in tar and in oil black water. He gasps for air and looks to the sky, but is unable to see any spec of blue through the heavy rolling fog. Sometimes he will see shadows in the mist.  
  
Sometimes they are small, diminutive, and gilled. Their webbed hands and razor talons reach for him and he isn’t sure if it is to drag him under, or to take him to a far worse fate.  
  
And he thinks he knows what that fate might be, for sometimes the shadows that he sees are fewer in number, and instead they swirl into a great abomination the likes of which causes pinpricks of pain to erupt across his brain simply by looking at it looming in the distance, all tentacles and wings and dragon-like maws.

_The second is the sand._

 When Ken dreams he finds himself walking across beaches of cold, colourless sand. The frigid air chills him to the bone, and lets him see his breath before it fades off to join the fog.  
  
One light breaks free through the fog. The lighthouse. There’s always a lighthouse. He tries to reach it but never comes any closer, and despite the fact that the coldness that purveys the beach should be freezing the sand solid, it somehow still swallows his feet, then to his knees, and leaves him exposed from the neck up until he wakes.

_The third is the solitude._  
  
When Ken dreams he finds himself alone. Where he once came to the Dark Ocean with Hikari and Miyako, he now finds himself painfully, desperately alone. And it is in that loneliness that voices call to him, tempt him with the company of the deep, whispering promises that will come to pass when he lets the water take him.   
  
Ken remembers seeing Daisuke in the Ocean when he visited it outside of his dreams, but now, worse than Daisuke not noticing him, is the fact that Daisuke is nowhere to be found.  
  
It’s just him.  

  
Not all that he dreams of is so terrible.  
  
  
He sometimes dreams of better days spent with his older brother, watching Osamu blowing bubbles that he could only hope to replicate.  
  
He sometimes dreams of his first kiss, of bumping noses with Daisuke and how his nerves had his chattering teeth nearly bite Daisuke’s tongue when it reaches for his.  
  
But there are always trips to the Dark Ocean. There are always nights where he watches the Kaiser take a whip to Gomamon. There are always nights where he watches Kimeramon’s rampage and shakes with fear.  
  
Sometimes these nights happen when he is sleeping on the floor in Daisuke’s room, or on the rarer occasions when Daisuke comes to sleep over at his home in Tamachi. On those nights Daisuke is often woken up by Ken’s dreams long before he has himself. To his credit, Daisuke saves him from them.  
  
He tries to help.  
  
And he does. Ken always appreciates the quiet moments in still nights where Daisuke gives him a hug and asks him how he feels and if he can do anything.  
  
Less helpful are the times when Daisuke tries to convince him to open up about his dreams. Ken doesn’t want to revisit them. He’s put all of that behind him. His friends have forgiven him, many Digimon have forgiven him. The Dark Spore was ripped from his body so he has no real reason to fear. So why _should_ he want to talk to someone about it? It wasn’t like Daisuke even knew anything about this sort of thing. Overhearing that one of his mother’s friends visits a therapist doesn’t make him an expert.  
  
_"Stop telling me you're okay," Daisuke says._  
  
And so Ken relents after a time.  
  
He relents after Daisuke goes behind his back and speaks to his parents because he _knows_ that Ken wouldn’t say no to them.  
  
He is angry with Daisuke for a long time about that. He is upset that Daisuke did not respect his decision and let him try and deal with this and cope in his own way.  
  
But it does help. Eventually. It takes time for him to open up to a stranger, even if this one _is_ well-versed in working with people who have been to the Digital World – Ken learns that Jyou and Mimi visited them, and that they spoke to Hikari and Takeru at points as well.  
  
So talking does end up helping.  
  
And he does forgive Daisuke, in part because he could never say upset with him, and in part because he knows that it was for the best. Because he knows that Daisuke only means well and only wants the best for him.  
  
Sometimes he doesn’t want to talk though, and during those times Ken is glad that he has someone as unabashedly affectionate as Daisuke, because he _really_ does think that having someone to hold and to hold you can really help too.

 


End file.
